American TESOL Institute Review

My friend, Katy, did a review of ATI Special Thailand project, and I thought I should do the same. There is not enough substantial information on the website, so I think it is important for would-be teachers to know what they are getting into.
Truthfully, I don't know why I did the program. The information on the website, at least back in 2009, makes it look like a scam, and I was really worried when I arrived at the airport that this was an elaborate scheme to get my organs or sell me into sex slavery. Luckily, though, this program is legitimate.
My program started with being certified as an English teacher in Chiang Mai and then placed me in a Korean public school. The organization was pretty poor; I would wait for e-mails, and then all of a sudden three different people (one from ATI, one from Thailand, and one from Korea) would be hounding me on all these documents that they needed, which they only now told me about. By the time I got to Thailand, I still didn't have a visa for Korea and wasn't sure if I was going to get a job. Luckily, I eventually got my interview for Korea, sent in my documents and got my visa the Friday before flying to Seoul... that's a different story.
For now, I want to focus on the ATI classes. Everyday, we would have lessons on pedagogy, classroom management, grammar, or language acquisition. While these were interesting, three weeks probably didn't give us enough time to be truly comfortable in a classroom. That said, learning pedagogy for four years also doesn't prepare someone for the mania of thirty-five young Koreans in a small English classroom.
There were some aspects, however, that were truly helpful. We had some useful practice in lesson planning, without which I would have been lost in the classroom. The first day we had to sit through Thai language acquisition completely in the Thai language; by being forced to learn as our students would learn, we were able to grasp the importance of word choice and repetition. Finally, we went to actual Thai classes and taught lessons two or three times. This practice gave me confidence for my first classes in Korea and gave us the chance to meet some adorable Thai students.
The one problem with the Thai-Korea special project was preparing us for Korea. While it was fun to draw pictures of elephants and superman to use as classroom aids, I never did that while teaching abroad in Seoul. In Thailand, you use chalkboards and whatever aids you can draw yourself. In Korea, this was definitely not the case. My classroom had projectors, computers for the students and white boards, and I usually used powerpoint to teach; the ATI program did not prepare us for a technology-rich classrooms. Also, while we learned about Thai culture and its effect on the classroom, we didn't learn anything about what our life was going to be like when we moved to Korea.
Overall, I had a positive experience. I met some AMAZING friends, who continued to be my friends when we moved on to Korea. I ate a ton of cheap and delicious pad thai. I got over some of my pre-teaching jitters by practicing on some Thai students. I got my TESOL degree, which increased my salary in Korea. When my friends ask for information about teaching abroad, I usually recommend this course. It is a great way to see two countries and a great way to get your TESOL certificate. Just don't expect the classes themselves to make you a great teacher. That takes times and experience.